On Dec. 24, XRPL Labs lead software engineer Denis Angell announced that the XRP Ledger’s AlphaNet has integrated post-quantum cryptography and native smart contracts. The upgrade replaces elliptic curve signatures with the NIST-standardized ML-DSA (CRYSTALS-Dilithium) scheme, introducing Quantum Accounts, Transactions, and Consensus while significantly increasing signature size to about 2,420 bytes. Alongside enhanced quantum resistance, the update brings base-layer smart contract capabilities designed to expand XRPL’s DeFi ecosystem beyond payments.

In 2025, data from Memento Research shows that 118 major token generation events took place and 100 of those tokens, or 84.7%, now trade beneath their opening fully diluted valuations, with the median drawdown at 71%. Analysts link this to a "low float, high FDV" launch model, a liquidity vacuum created by ETF-driven flows into Bitcoin and Ethereum, and a shift in institutional behavior as liquid funds reportedly stopped buying new tokens at TGE over two years ago.

In Q4 2025, on-chain metrics and market flows point to a Bitcoin demand gap, with US spot ETFs moving to net redemptions and aggregate holdings down by roughly 24,000 BTC. Analysts citing CryptoQuant and Alphractal describe a "bear season", while price analogs from Fidelity's Jurrien Timmer highlight support near $65,000–$75,000.

In early October 2025, Bitcoin reached a record $126,223 before a sharp Oct. 10 deleveraging wiped out about $20 billion in leveraged positions and drove a 30% price drop. Since then, exchange volumes and market depth have fallen, with data showing a roughly 30% slide in aggregated 2% depth from 2025 highs and more than $5 billion redeemed from U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs. With Binance's 1% order book depth shrinking from over $600 million in October to under $400 million, Bitcoin is now trading below $90,000 in a structurally thinner market. At 12:14 pm UTC on Dec. 20, 2025, Bitcoin was priced at $88,279.08, with a market cap of $1.76 trillion.

On Dec. 18, the Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate to 0.75%, the highest level since 1995, marking a clear departure from its long-running ultra-loose policy. Bitcoin traded near $87,800 after the move, but analysts warned that a sustained tightening path in Japan, combined with possible U.S. rate cuts, could squeeze yen-funded leverage and dampen demand for risk assets, including crypto. Market data also indicated U.S. investors sold into the news, while some observers argued that Japan’s negative real rates and potential balance-sheet dynamics could still support Bitcoin over the longer term.

Alphabet’s Google is providing at least $5 billion in credit support to help several Bitcoin miners repurpose sites for AI hosting through long-term leases. On Dec. 17, Hut 8 disclosed a 15-year, 245‑megawatt deal in Louisiana; earlier deals at TeraWulf and Cipher included multibillion‑dollar revenue commitments underpinned by Google. The structure allows banks to treat these projects as infrastructure debt rather than speculative crypto financing.

On Dec. 17, Intersect's Product Committee published the "Vision 2030" roadmap, setting strict Key Performance Indicators for Cardano, including 324 million annual transactions, 1 million monthly active wallets, and around $3 billion in TVL. The plan aims for at least 16 million ADA in yearly protocol revenue by 2030 and uses an illustrative $5 ADA price — about 500% above current levels — to show potential earnings, while shifting the network toward an enterprise-focused "operating system" model that relies heavily on Layer 2 infrastructure.

According to data from Pipe, Solana's network absorbed a distributed denial-of-service attack peaking around 6 terabits per second this week without downtime or notable fee spikes, a performance later confirmed by co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal. The event coincides with a more than 35% drop in active validators in 2025 and growing concentration of stake among large infrastructure providers, even as Solana processes roughly $1.6 trillion in annual trading volume and supports about $15 billion in stablecoins.

XRP has dropped under $2 to around $1.87, with its price down roughly 6% in a day and about 17% over a recent institutional inflow streak. A nearly seven-year-old wallet that accumulated XRP near $0.40 realized more than $721.5 million in profit around the $2 level on Dec. 11, amid falling leverage on Binance and a sharp decline in XRP futures buying volume.